Lego recalls 400 billion bricks following anti-Muslim charge

Danish toy giant Lego yesterday recalled its 400 billion bricks after complaints from Austrian Muslims that its Star Wars toy set featuring a mosque-like building inhabited by an obese, hookah–smoking alien, was anti-Muslim.

'We are recalling every Lego brick in the world, ' said a Lego spokeswoman, 'as a precautionary measure. It only affects every single brick and flat we have ever made.'

A statement from the company said that as it couldn't be sure which of its bricks might be used to construct the Jabba's Palace mosque, it had to recall them all, 'even the yellow ones'.

Lego said the only threat so far against the company had come from a thirteen-year-old boy in Blackburn, Lancashire, who had threatened to 'burn to the ground' Lego's Danish factory because he couldn't finish Jabba's Palace as he was a brick short.

The playset started to provoke outrage after a Muslim father found that his sister had given one to his son as a present instead of the Lego Koran.

'This sort of thing does not belong in a child’s bedroom,' said a spokeswoman for Austria’s Turkish Cultural Association, who added that a mini fatwa against several Lego minifigures (Series 10) couldn't be ruled out.

Attempts by outraged crowds of Muslims across the world to smash Lego bricks and flats into tiny pieces had so failed.

'We'll yet find a way (God willing) to smash this anti-Muslim acrylonitrile butadiene styrene polymer into bits,' promised a leading Muslim cleric (98) who admitted he was 'rubbish at Lego' and had been unable to construct Jabba's Palace despite several days of prayer and fasting.

The Lego spokeswoman refused to comment further on its withdrawal of the set.

The explanation is that whoever was on editing duty at the time thought something else was better, or just skimmed the top ten till he found something he liked, or was too bone idle to look beyond the sub that was getting lots of stars and comments on page one, or Ludo or Dark Bill was active that week and bulldozing us mere mortals into oblivion ... it's really not very scientific. Always worth recycling, as my own career has shown. 5*